Toronto Airport to Ottawa & Parliament Hill

Should I drive from Pearson to Ottawa, or fly or take the train?

The Ottawa and Carleton page covers the universities and the night drive after a cancelled connection; the Kingston page covers the first three hours of the road; the long-distance page explains how a four-hour fare is set.

Parliament Hill, the Château and the doors

Parliament Hill stands on the bluff above the Ottawa River at the top of Wellington Street — the Centre Block under renovation for the decade, the Senate in the old railway station across Rideau Street, the House of Commons in the West Block's courtyard, the Centennial Flame at the gates, the Changing of the Guard on the lawn on summer mornings — and the Château Laurier beside it on Rideau Street is the hotel the capital is photographed with. The chauffeur drops at the Château's Rideau Street door, at the Westin or the Marriott on Kent, at the Lord Elgin on Elgin Street, at the Andaz or the Novotel in the ByWard Market, or at the Best Western and Holiday Inn properties along the Queensway; Wellington Street in front of the Hill is closed to cars, and the drop for the Hill's tours — booked through the Parliament's visitor service — is on Sparks or Metcalfe Street, two minutes' walk. The Ottawa Tourism site publishes the Hill's tour hours and the guard's schedule.

The capital's day: the museums, the canal and the market

The capital's day is the chauffeured day that the hourly flight's visitor books from the Ottawa airport and the driver's visitor books from the hotel: the Hill in the morning, the National Gallery's glass tower and the Notre-Dame basilica across Sussex Drive, the Canadian War Museum on the river's flats and the Museum of History across the bridge in Gatineau with its Grand Hall of totem poles, the ByWard Market's stalls and its BeaverTails, the Rideau Canal's locks at the Château's foot and the boat cruise from them, Rideau Hall's grounds and the prime minister's gate on Sussex, and Gatineau Park's lookouts across the river for the fall colours. The three-hour minimum covers the Hill and two museums; a whole day covers the capital, and a second day the park and the Diefenbunker at Carp.

Canada Day, Winterlude and the calendar

Ottawa's calendar has two peaks. Canada Day on the first of July is the country's party on the Hill and the lawns — the concerts, the fireworks over the river, the crowd of hundreds of thousands, the hotels sold out months ahead, the downtown closed to cars from morning — and the chauffeur's role is the drop at the closure's edge and the pickup after the fireworks at a point on the Queensway side texted before the show. Winterlude in February is the Rideau Canal's skateway — the world's largest rink, eight kilometres from the Château to Dow's Lake when the ice holds — with the ice sculptures in Confederation Park and the snow slides in Gatineau, and a visitor flying in for it books the skates rented at the canal's huts and the chauffeured evening with the warm car at the Fifth Avenue steps. The Tulip Festival in May, the Bluesfest in July and the fall colours in Gatineau Park are the other seasons.

The government visitor and the working drive

Ottawa's professional traffic is the government's: the executive with a day of meetings on Wellington and Sparks Streets and in the departments along the Queensway, the association's delegation for a committee appearance, the lobbyist's week, the contractor's visit to the defence headquarters at Carling or the departments in Gatineau. Most fly; some drive, and the four-and-a-half-hour drive from Pearson is a working day on the vehicle's Wi-Fi for the executive who prefers it to the airports, booked on a corporate account with the standing car for the days in the city and the departure timed to the flight home from Ottawa's airport — which is the usual pattern: the drive one way, the flight the other. The Ottawa airport transfer itself runs through the network's Ottawa partner on the same engine.

The group weekend and the Sprinter

The chauffeur's clearest case is arithmetic: a family of five flying into Pearson from overseas for Canada Day pays five connecting fares, checks the bags twice and needs a car at the Ottawa end; the Sprinter from Pearson is one fare, one loading, and the Château's door, with the Thousand Islands as the stop on the way and Kingston's waterfront as the lunch. A group of eight friends from the Toronto area for Winterlude, a school's Parliament trip on the coach with the manifest and the seats for the youngest, a family reunion at an Ottawa cottage — each is one vehicle fare split however the group likes, and the drive is the reason the group travels together.

Montréal, Kingston and the corridor

Ottawa is two hours from Montréal on Highway 417 and the 40, two from Kingston on the 416 and the 401, and a visitor working through the corridor books the legs as fixed fares on one confirmation: Pearson to Kingston and the islands, Kingston to Ottawa, Ottawa to Montréal, and the flight home from Montréal's airport through the network's partner there. The cross-border service covers Ogdensburg and the American side of the river for a visitor from New York State, and the border wait at the Ogdensburg-Prescott bridge is on the live page.

Winter: the 401 and the 416 in January

The drive in January is the drive the connecting flight was invented to avoid — and the one that runs when the flight does not, because freezing rain cancels the regional flights more often than it closes the highway. The 401 east of Oshawa drifts off the lake and the 416 north of Kemptville is the exposed stretch; the chauffeur reads Ontario 511 before leaving, the vehicles run winter tyres, and a drive that cannot be made safely is rescheduled rather than attempted, with a trip under way waiting out a closure at a service centre with the passengers warm inside.

What the fare includes

The fare from Pearson to Ottawa is fixed by vehicle class for the address and includes the chauffeur, the vehicle, fuel, the 407 toll, taxes, curbside pickup at the pre-arranged area, two stops on the way and the included waiting with the flight tracked; meet and greet is the paid add-on; gratuity is never added; a cancellation before dispatch is free; the Hill's tours, the museums and the hotels are the visitor's bookings.

Gatineau, the park and the Quebec side

Ottawa's river is a provincial border, and the capital's other half is Gatineau across the bridges: the Canadian Museum of History on the Quebec shore with the Grand Hall's totem poles and the view of the Hill across the water, the casino at Lac-Leamy with its hotel and its theatre, the Gatineau Park's lookouts at Champlain and its Mackenzie King estate with the ruins in the garden, and the Nordik spa at Chelsea in the park's edge — the largest in the country, with the outdoor baths in the forest. A chauffeured day from an Ottawa hotel crosses the Portage or the Alexandra bridge for the museum in the morning, the park's lookouts at noon and the Nordik in the afternoon, and the fall colours in the park in the first two weeks of October are the capital's best drive.

The Ottawa airport partner and the two-airport trip

The network's Ottawa partner runs the twenty-minute transfer from the Ottawa airport to the Hill's hotels on the same engine as the Pearson one, and the trip that uses both airports is the usual one: the chauffeur from Pearson for the drive up with the Thousand Islands as the lunch, the days in the capital with the standing car on a corporate account, and the hourly flight home from Ottawa with the partner's car to the terminal. A visitor who lands at Pearson from overseas with a through-ticket to Ottawa lands at the Ottawa airport and books the partner directly; the chauffeur from Pearson is the answer when the through-ticket's connection has failed, and the Ottawa and Carleton page describes that night drive.

Book Pearson to Ottawa